viernes, febrero 23, 2007

Bananos transgénicos

Taken from GM Watch:

Geoffrey Arinatwe, the Ugandan scientist who developed the GM banana featured in the article below, is part of a group of scientists based in Belgium who've been responsible for a whole series of attempts to massively hype GM bananas.

These "only GM can save the banana" stories get expertly debunked each time they arise. GM is not the only way to conserve bananas or make them disease resistant quite apart from the fact that there's no evidence consumers want them – see:

In addition, James Smith, an African Studies specialist at the University of Edinburgh has produced telling evidence as to how biotech banana projects can be hyped to a truly spectacular degree.http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=5823

Part of the pattern that can occur involves biotech being presented as an almost miraculous solution to what is presented as a major and otherwise intractable problem. Smith notes that this type of crisis "narrative prevails amongst a whole range of literature supporting biotechnological development in Africa."

The project in neighbouring Kenya that Smith examined made misleading claims about not only the level of success delivered by biotech bananas but also the extent to which bananas contributed to food security, nutritional intake, and household incomes.

In view of that, it would only be wise to treat the claims made in this latest report with care until it's clear what kind of data is available to support them.---